Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This question is about general governance across higher education. The Higher Education Authority, HEA, oversees governance issues through a number of mechanisms, including the return of annual governance statements from each of the institutions, annual system funding reviews and meetings with the Comptroller and Auditor General concerning audits of accounts, and acting upon those. Indeed, it was as a result of acting upon one of these that the particular issue of the foundations came to light. These are now being integrated into the accounts of these institutions. That is progressing, and many of the colleges have already done so and others are in the course of doing so.

As part of my Department and the HEA's ongoing work to develop, in co-operation with the higher education sector, a robust system for good governance and accountability in the sector, it was agreed that a programme of rolling reviews would be set up which would cover specific elements of governance. This process involved setting a centralised procurement framework to deliver the reviews, the aim of which is to evaluate the effectiveness of governance in organisations against stated policy, best practice and national and international standards. My Department agreed with the HEA that the first rolling review of governance compliance would be on procurement. This review was undertaken in 2016. As a follow-up to the review and to increase awareness of the need to comply with national procurement guidelines, the HEA, together with Education Procurement Services, EPS, organised a higher education procurement summit.

It has been agreed that the next rolling review will be carried out on non-compliance of payments, including any payments to staff at higher education institutions. The process of tendering for this review is under way in the HEA.

The Department’s overall intention is to standardise its approach to governance compliance across the education sector, taking into account the diverse nature of education sectoral bodies and having regard to the core standards of governance as articulated in the 2016 code. In developing this approach, the Department acknowledges governance codes do not override existing statutory requirements such as the Companies Act, ethics legislation and other obligations imposed by the specific statutory provisions relating to the body itself and any other relevant legislation.

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